hitchhiking

I absolutely loved Marc Maron’s recent interview with Neil Gaiman. While I’ve never been a huge Gaiman fan, I found myself enamored with his insights into comic fandom, TV production, and his writing process.

My favorite bit though, is when Gaiman describes the process of beginning his Sandman comics, and how despite having the end in mind already, he felt as though he was “hitchhiking” his way through his own story:

It’s the equivalent of ‘I’m in New York, I’m going to hitchhike to Los Angeles. I know where I am and I have an idea of the kind of places I’m probably gonna go on the way.’

But then you hitchhike, and sometimes you don’t quite go to the place you thought you were going. And sometimes, somebody that you meet on the way becomes incredibly important to you. But at the end of the day, you still have that journey. It just took you twice as long.